Cooperative Breeding in Vertebrates

Studies of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior

Walter D. Koenig, Janis L. Dickinson

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781107043435
• eBook ISBN:
  9781316490624
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Veterinary Medicine

Cooperative breeders are species in which individuals beyond a pair assist in the production of young in a single brood or litter. Although relatively rare, cooperative breeding is widespread taxonomically and continues to pose challenges to our understanding of the evolution of cooperation and altruistic behavior. Bringing together long-term studies of cooperatively breeding birds, mammals, and fish, this volume provides a synthesis of current studies in the field. The chapters are organised by individual studies of particular species or (in the case of mole-rats) two closely related cooperatively breeding species. Each focuses not only on describing behavior and ecology but also on testing evolutionary hypotheses for the form and function of the diverse and extraordinary cooperative breeding lifestyles that have been discovered. This unique and comprehensive text will be of interest to graduate students and researchers of behavioral ecology and the evolution of cooperation.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Table of contents
• List of contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Siberian jays: Delayed dispersal in the absence of cooperative breeding
• 2 Western bluebirds: Lessons from a marginal cooperative breeder
• 3 Long-tailed tits: Ecological causes and fitness consequences of redirected helping
• 4 Red-cockaded woodpeckers: Alternative pathways to breeding success
• 5 Florida scrub-jays: Oversized territories and group defense in a fire-maintained habitat
• 6 Carrion crows: Family living and helping in a flexible social system
• 7 Southern pied babblers: The dynamics of conflict and cooperation in a group-living society
• 8 Superb fairy-wrens: Making the worst of a good job
• 9 Chestnut-crowned babblers: Dealing with climatic adversity and uncertainty in the Australian arid zone
• 10 Bell miners: Kin-selected helping decisions
• 11 Superb starlings: Cooperation and conflict in an unpredictable environment
• 12 Seychelles warblers: Complexities of the helping paradox
• 13 Acorn woodpeckers: Helping at the nest, polygynandry, and dependence on a variable acorn crop
• 14 Taiwan yuhinas: Unrelated joint-nesters cooperate in unfavorable environments
• 15 Guira cuckoos: Cooperation, infanticide, and female reproductive investment in a joint-nesting species
• 16 Cichlid fishes: A model for the integrative study of social behavior
• 17 Meerkats: Cooperative breeding in the Kalahari
• 18 Banded mongooses: Demography, life history, and social behavior
• 19 Damaraland and naked mole-rats: Convergence of social evolution
• 20 Synthesis: Cooperative breeding in the twenty-first century
• Index